Welcome to San Francisco, Cynder
by Jeff Gordon
Summary: San Francisco, also called "The Golden City". Little did they know they'd find someone with a heart of gold there. A Slice of Life story documenting the relationship between a human and a dragon.
1. A Computer Browsing Coincidence

"Now arriving at Belmont Station, Belmont."

As the intercom played through the train compartment, Kaz got out of his seat and grabbed his backpack and Skateboard as the #253 Caltrain rolled into his stop. With a lurch, it came to a halt and the doors of the train car opened, and he stepped onto the platform and headed towards the stairs that led to the street below. Once down onto the corner of El Camino & Ralston, he got onto his skateboard as the traffic light turned green, signifying his turn to cross.

Kaz was a 16 year-old junior in High School, who had lived all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Japanese-American boy had jet black hair with brown eyes, and was wearing a Supreme hoodie above a white RocketBunny shirt, a pair of jeans, and black Nikes as his current day's attire. He took the local commuter train to and from school everyday, which would only take him about 20 minutes both ways. Both his school and his house were near their respective stops, so by skateboard it only would take him about 40 minutes to each destination. He always did have a passing interests in trains anyways, so his commute rarely bothered him.

Skating up Ralston Ave. he lightly pondered about what he was planning to do that Friday night. He didn't have any friends to hang out with, as they were all busy with one thing or another, surprisingly. He would probably just mess around in his room, playing some PS3 and perhaps starting some of his SAT studying, although he highly doubted it. While smart when he wanted to be and having decent grades, he always seemed to struggle to find motivation to study when he got home.

Arriving at his house, he unlocked the door, passing a greeting to his mom as he entered his room. Placing his backpack on his bed and putting his skateboard in the closet. He pulled a chair from his desk in front of the tv in the front of his room, grabbing a controller and the tv remote as he turned on his Tv and pressed the power button his PlayStation. Looking through his pile of games, he put in "Need For Speed: Rivals" and put on his stereo headphones, before consuming himself the arcade like gameplay of his game for the next few hours.

After stopping to eat diner with his family, he lied down on his bed, pulling up his laptop and opening up a tab for Reddit, a website he always seemed to be spending time on when he had a chance. Scrolling through the frontpage of his personalized feed, he read some articles about the local basketball team, The Golden State Warriors, before noticing a post from a subreddit he usually didn't see.

"r/Spyro"

"Huh, usually that subreddit doesn't make the front page, it must be some big news" he said to himself, clicking on the link as the the new site title flashed before his eyes.

"Spyro The Dragon PS4 remaster LEAKED in New Crash Bandicoot N. game update"

"Well, that's a surprise" Kaz said as he raised a eyebrow at the article headline. Scrolling through the rest of the article, it seemed like the writer wasn't writing crap either. It looked like there genuinely was going to be a new Spyro game coming soon.

Kaz cracked a half smile, letting out a sigh of relief. He had always been an on-and-off fan of that series, and dragons in general, and even had the final game of the "Legend of Spyro" Trilogy. He, as well as many other gamers, always liked to see old series get new leases at life in the modern gaming world. While not his favorite game by any means, it been the baseline for his jump into the game's fanbase, and although not harcore, always enjoyed the casual thread about theories surrounding the storyline of the multiple games that had been released over the years.

"Maybe if my dad gets me a PS4 for my birthday i'll be able to get that game, that would be neat" Kaz said, closing the tab as he scrolled through the rest of his frontpage. His mind though still lingering about the Spyro series. He had a passing thought that came to the center of his attention though, and it was about the ending of the Spyro game he had, and the theories surrounding it in general, which were what exactly had happened to both Spyro and his female companion, Cynder, after the end of the game. His mind had a brief flashback on how Cynder had stated "I love you" before everything went white, and how both dragons were shown flying around Avalar above it's grassy fields in the final seconds of game.

A grunt escaped Kaz. He had always things that ended with cliffhangers. Hopefully, the remake would give a better insight than the half-hearted attempt at an epilogue from the original game.

"Though, I do wonder what it would be like in their place. Fighting monsters and saving the world sounds so much cooler than my life right now" he thought to himself. Kaz always seemed to have these thoughts, that although absurd and complete fantasy, he seemed to be wishing more and more these days to live his life as a one of his game's characters. It certainly would be a more exciting turn from his monotone life these days.

Putting away his computer, Kaz got changed into his nightly clothing, before sliding into his queen sized bed. Reminiscing about his day, mostly worrying about how he had done on his Biology test, his final thoughts before slipping into the realm of dreams was how he wished his life could be spiced up in any way possible, and contently fell asleep for the night.

 **Welp, that's probably my first real attempt at writing fanfiction so far in my life. I appreciate you guys taking the time to read this short prologue of this story, and I severely hope I can keep up the motivation to continue writing this story. Please leave and comments about what you liked and what could be improved, thanks!**


	2. What Are You Doing In My Fountain?

Kaz woke up bright and early the next morning, as he usually did on weekends. He always hated sleeping in during the weekends because in his mind, that meant he was wasting what little time off he usually had. Turning over to pick up his smartphone, the time indicated 7:53 AM. Yawning lightly, he pulled himself out of bed, eyes half open, and walked over to the kitchen to make himself a bowl of cereal.

After eating breakfast by himself due to the rest of his family being asleep, Kaz walked back to his room and turned on the lights for it. Knowing that he wouldn't have much time before he would need to head off for his morning SAT prep class, he got himself changed into his Vineyard Vines shirt, his signature Supreme hoodie, and a pair of grey sweatpants. SInce he hadn't unpacked his backpack from yesterday, he was all ready to go to his class in an hour. Deciding to play some more PS3, not tired out from yesterday's session in the slightest, he booted the console up. His dad poked his head into his door saying good morning and Kaz returned the greeting to him, and then looked through his game collection to play.

A thought popped up in his head as he remembered about what he had read last night on r/Spyro. A smirk appeared on his face as he pulled out from the bottom of the pile "The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon" and replaced his Need For Speed disc from yesterday with the new one. Navigating through the menu of the game after sitting through the intro loading scene, he decided to start a new game, as he had already completed it once before. Thus, the first moments of the game started as the music from the game brought up some nostalgia within him.

Eventually, Kaz was able to get through the first 45 minutes of the game, essentially relearning the game controls and physics after not playing the game in so long. Saving the game and turning off his console and tv, he got up to signify his dad that he was leaving for his class. He grabbed his backpack and the keys from his desk and headed outside to the family's car, a Lexus, and put his backpack in the trunk before sliding into the driver's seat (He had just passed his driving test a week before). He turned on the car, before driving out of his street onto the main road to his class location, a 20 minute drive away at the local community college.

Soon, Kaz rolled into the parking lot of College of San Mateo. Shutting his car off and grabbing his keys, and pulled his backpack from the trunk and walked over to the entrance of one of the smaller buildings of the campus. Humming a tune to himself, he entered the building, before reaching his class and mentally preparing himself for his mind-numbing two hour class.

* * *

Finally, Kaz was finished. The end of that class couldn't have come soon enough once the teacher started lecturing about different types of argumentative essays the class would need to know. Granted, the teacher wasn't bad by any means, but it was just so boring!

As the rest of the students filed out of the classroom, Kaz's phone started ringing in his pocket. Pulling out the phone, he saw that it was his dad calling him, and slid the answer button.

"Hey dad, why you calling me?"

"Kaz, your mother and I are going out for groceries at Whole Foods right now, so we won't be back for a little bit."

"Ah ok, alright then. Leave the back door open for me please."

"Already did. Is there anything you'd like us to get you?"

"Uh yeah sure I guess. Can you get some Fiji water for me please. Also, one of those dark chocolate bars they have near the registers."

"Will do. Love you. Bye."

"Yep, you too dad."

Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he got into his car and drove off back to his house. Luckily, he didn't have anything planned for the rest of the day, and probably wouldn't start his school homework until tomorrow.

Pulling into the driveway of his house and shutting off the car, Kaz got out and grabbed his backpack from the trunk, the distinct lack of the family's SUV apparent. He mumbled about having to fix himself some sort of sandwich for lunch again while his parents were gone, getting food ironically. He locked the doors of the Lexus, and headed to the driveway gate, which he would need to open and get through in order to reach the backdoor. Pushing it open easily thanks to the broken lock, he walked down the side of his house, admiring some of the plants that his mom had planted earlier that week. Walking along his small backyard (thanks Bay Area property values) he climbed up the small set of stairs to the back door.

However, just before he opened the door, Kaz noticed something odd. His reflection, it seemed as if it was outlined by some sort of shine. Looking down on himself, he patted himself down, yet failed to see anything around him.

Looking behind him, he raised an eyebrow. It appeared as if the fountain that was in the middle of the backyard was giving off some sort of light from the bottom pool.

"There's no way I wouldn't have noticed that walking in" he thought to himself. Dropping his backpack on the steps, he walked back down the stairs and through the grass, before stepping on the gravel that surrounded the fountain and peering down.

A small crystal, or as what Kaz could best describe as, rested at the bottom of the pool, emitting a bright light that made Kaz have to squint.

"Man, what the hell is this thing" he said to himself. The so called "crystal" was a clearish yellow in color, and was about 6 inches tall by 4 inches wide. It seemed to pulse with energy rhythmically, which Kaz could not seem to figure out why.

"I don't even...I mean wha...aw what ever" Kaz said as he couldn't seem to figure how this crystal got into his fountain without him noticing. Deciding to throw caution with the wind, he rolled up one of his hoodie sleeves, before slowly dipping his hand into the water, and touched the shiny crystal.

No flash, no bang, no howl of wind, just a crystal pulsating light in his hands. Lifting it out of the water, Kaz had to squint to get a direct look at it. He could barely make out the fountain water below the crystal, and deemed that there wasn't anything inside of it. The jagged edges of it were sharp but not painful to him though.

Taking the Crystal into his house, alongside picking up his backpack from the steps, he entered the door and headed to his room. Placing his backpack on the side of his desk, he placed the Crystal on one of his shelves which housed all sorts of collectibles he had, mostly action figures from when he was younger, and some diecast cars. He grabbed a pair of sunglasses from his closet and put them on, before heading back to examine the crystal, hopefully more clearly now.

To Kaz, nothing really looked off about the Crystal, if you ignored the fact that it was still flashing rhythmically with no interior source of the production of light. In fact, if the crystal wasn't flashing, and was a normal color (think diamond), Kaz could've probably sold it for a hefty price. He decided to ask his parents if they knew anything about this crystal he had found, and decided to kill sometime by browsing more reddit on his laptop after making himself a Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich.

Around an hour after Kaz had arrived home, he heard the unlocking of the front door and his dad yelling a hello to him and asking him to help him and his mom with the rest of the bags, which he obliged to. Soon after they finished, Kaz asked his parents if they knew anything about the Crystal he found.

"You mean in the fountain?" Kaz's mother replied to him with a perplexed face, currently folding clothes.

"Yeah, I saw a bright light behind me all of a sudden and there it was."

"Well, why don't you show us it" his dad chimed in.

So Kaz went to his room, and warned his parents to shield their eyes before bringing the Crystal in front of them.

"Wow, i've never seen that before" his father said in slight shock.

"Yeah, I have no idea why it flashed like that, or how it even go there" Kaz replied.

"Well, maybe you should ask the science teacher at school about it, because I have no clue why its like that either."

"I guess so" he replied. After handing it to his parents to hold for a few moments, he took it back to his room and set it back on the shelf again.

* * *

The rest of Kaz's day was fairly easy, as he had expected. His father had to head off to meet a friend of his in San Jose, a 30 minute drive south, while his mother had been organizing most of the family spendings and savings, with Kaz helping her occasionally. He had wanted to head into accounting as a career, and prided himself in his skills of saving his own money well. The rest of the time though was spent between reading a book of his for school, surfing more reddit, and trying to find answers on the crystal that he had found earlier that day, which has so far failed to turn up any answers.

He and his parents had a dinner of steak, fries, and peas, before he wished them goodnight. He then took a quick shower and then changed into his nightly clothes once again. Realizing that he wouldn't be able to sleep with the Crystal emitting a bright light like that, he got up to cover it with a small towel.

"Wait a minute.." Kaz says, staring at the crystal.

As he looks at the Crystal, it no longer flashes. Instead, while still producing light, is less dull and now constant instead on and off rhythmically.

"Ok, this is starting to get creepy" Kaz states as a shudder passes through his body. Taking the crystal from the shelf to see why it has undertaken this change, he accidentally loses his grip on it as the Crystal significantly brightens once he picks it up.

"Oh shit" Kaz says as the Crystal hits the ground.

A dull thunk emanates in the room. With a sigh of relief, Kaz realizes nothing has happened to it, and goes to pick it up again. As he is just about to grab, the crystal then starts shaking.

"What the fuuu…?" Kaz says, slowly backing away from it as it starts to shake more vigorously.

In a split-second, Kaz's vision his suddenly blinded with light and a shattering sound of some sort is heard. The light then dies down as the room fills with mist, causing Kaz to cough as he weakly opens his eyes, trying to figure how in the holy hell a crystal can cause all this.

The mist eventually dissipates after a few moments and Kaz looks down at where the Crystal (supposedly) is.

"..."

"Nani?"

 **Blah blah blah cliffhanger I know I know but I had a hard time coming up with a for a Crystal to cause this much trouble while still somewhat respecting the laws of physics. I feel like overall though, being familiar with the setting I write in, since I kinda live in the next town over from the main character, Is helping me visualize my story easily, which in turn helps me focus on the characters and plot some more. Again, thanks for reading, and make sure to add any comments of support or concern or recommendations for me, thanks!**


	3. A Dragon Watches A Basketball Game

Simply put, Kaz had seen some shit.

Living in such a diverse place as San Francisco and its surrounding area had opened up his eyes to a lot of things. Whether it be that half his friends did some form of drugs or vapes, skating late at night at sketchy skate parks and getting into an argument with a homeless person as a result, or walking down the creepy side streets of Chinatown and nearly getting mugged, it took alot to make Kaz uncomfortable.

This though, took the cake.

"Nani?"

Where the possessed crystal had once been on the ground, was now a living, breathing, fully real dragon sprawled across his room's floor. Kaz was completely frozen at where he was standing. This was definitely not how real world logic worked. This just didn't happen. At least, that's what Kaz had always thought.

It appeared that he was wrong though.

As his panic-ridden eyes started to scan the body of the dragon, a more horrifying realization passed through him. He recognized this creature. No, this wasn't true, it COULDN'T be true, and yet here it was.

The terror of skies, Cynder, was lying directly in front of him, and from what he could best decipher from, also unconscious.

'Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit.'

Doing his best to stop himself from having a panic attack, he could tell that she was around 5 feet tall and 6 feet long, not including her tail, and her scales certainly seemed a lot darker than in the game. Something that was curiously interesting for him though was just how real she looked, compared to the obviously animated look from the games.

Gulping, mind still ablaze trying to comprehend the situation, Kaz started to move from his position and crouched down to the side of Cynder. Slowly, he moved one of his hands forwards and gently placed it on Cynder's side, noticing immediately how warm she was.

As if she reacted to the touch, Cynder let out a mild grunt in her comatose state, scaring the living daylights out of Kaz. Falling on his butt and pushing himself onto the side of his bed, he saw the dragon slowly start to wake up, eyes bulging at the sight.

"Ok. Keep calm Kaz. Keep calm Kaz. It's just a dragon, it's okay, she's nice from what I saw in the games."

A new thought passed through Kaz suddenly. What if she wasn't the same as in the games. How did he know the game's reality even existed?

'I honestly don't think I should be questioning stuff anymore'

* * *

Cynder opened her eyes as she started waking up. Looking around, she could tell she wasn't in the center of earth anymore, but couldn't tell where exactly she was either.

'Did we survive?' Cynder thought to herself. Now fully opening her eyes, she could see a plain blue wall in front of her, and felt herself currently lying on some sort of rug.

"Spyro? Are you here?" her voice said with a hint of worry. She could remember him being suddenly engulfed in light, as he had tried to bring the world back together. Had he survived? Did she even survive? Was she actually in the afterlife.

Turning her head around, she could see that she was in some sort of room, with a desk and bookcase, alongside two windows to the right of her. Then, turning to to her left, her eyes widened a little, as she came face to face with some creature she had never seen before. He appeared to have a similar body structure to a cheetah, yet was hairless and a good foot or two shorter than Hunter the cheetah that she and Spyro had met.

"Who are you?" Cynder said to the creature. "Where am I?"

The creature seemed to visibly pale when she asked those questions. After a few moments, he managed to stutter out an answer to her.

"Y-Your i-in B-Belmont, n-near San F-Fransisc-co. America?" He choked out.

Belmont? San Francisco? America? She had never heard of these places before. She must've somehow gotten a long ways off from Warfang.

"How did I get here? Who are you?" she said with a little more force in her voice.

"I d-don't know, I dropped a crystal I found in m-my yard and you a-appeared from it" it responded.

A crystal, how could she appear from a crystal? Had Spyro frozen them again when he had used his power to save the earth? In order to protect them?

"Where is Spyro?! If I was in a crystal, then he should've been in the same one as well?!"

The creature seemed almost at a loss of words for that. "Im s-sorry. Only you came from it. "

Ok, this was bad. Despite her distrust in this being she had never seen before, she could tell that he was too scared to lie at this point.

"You said you found me in a crystal in your yard, correct?" she said more slowly.

He nodded. "Yeah, i was walking by it, the all of a sudden I saw a flash and a small crystal was in my fountain all of a sudden."

Ok, Cynder was lost now. How was she in such a small crystal in the first place? How could she have just suddenly appeared? Her head was starting to hurt with all the questions she had.

"You said I was in a place called America? Where is that on earth?"

Kaz had to stop to think of a response. How could he explain to someone, supposedly entirely fantasy, that she was now real? It seemed like she thought she was still on her own planet. He couldn't just say "Yeah you technically didn't exist until just now."

"Uh, I think you might not be where you think you are." Kaz replied, to which Cynder gave a questionable cock of her head.

"I don't understand."

Kaz decided that there wasn't going to be any easy way to explain this to her easily, now that he knew that this was the same Cynder from The Legend of Spyro games.

"Um, you see, it's kind of complicated" he said with a sigh. "Like, you might be an…" he paused for the right word. "An entirely different dimension."

Cynder obviously looked surprised, then a scowl crossed her features. "How is that possible? Why should i trust that your telling the truth? Dimensions are just fantasy!" Cynder said with a growl.

"Wait wait wait!" Kaz said, waving his hands frantically. "I have proof!" Quickly getting up, he ran into his closet, grabbing an old map of the world he had and stepping back into his room. Unfolding the map, he lay it down on the floor in front of Cynder. "Do you recognize this? It's the map of the world we are on right now."

Cynder examined the map carefully. The landmasses were completely different than all the maps she had seen before and were all spread apart by large oceans as well.

"Wha-at?" Cynder said in mild shock. The creature was starting to make sense. Suddenly appearing out of a crystal that came from nowhere in a land that she didn't recognize, nor a creature she had ever seen.

"Im as confused as you are, I was just minding my own business." Kaz stated

"No. No, how? This can't happen? Alternate dimensions are just theories made by lunatics!" Cynder said, a panic starting to wash over her.

"That's what I thought too apparently." Kaz replied. It seemed as though the weight of the situation came crashing down on her.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down, she turned back towards the creature. "What are you? I've never seen someone like you from where I come from?"

"Oh, um, i'm a human, pretty much the only sentient species on this planet."

"Interesting…"

Another silence washed over the room.

"Well, I'm a dragon from where I come from."

"I know" said Kaz, not realizing what he had implied by that.

Cynder's eyes widened once again. "How did you know that?!" she asked, confused.

Kaz widened his eyes as well, now realizing what he had said. How could he explain that he already knew about dragons.

"Uhhhhh...Dragons are kinda a thing here."

"There are other dragons on this planet?" Cynder replied with some hopefulness, quickly disappearing as a frown etched it's way on Kaz's face.

"No actually, they don't. You see, dragons are mythical creatures that were created by people for stories hundreds of years ago. So no, dragons don't exist here."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

'Also, your kinda the main character of one of those stories' Kaz thought.

A few moments later, Kaz got up from his position near Cynder and sat on his bed, silently thanking that his parents had fallen asleep before all of this had happened. Cynder, eyeing his movements carefully, then asked "Well, at least I should get to know your name?"

"Yeah, its Kaz. Kaz Kobayashi." he responded.

"Kaz Kobayashi...what a strange name…" Cynder repeated to herself.

"I mean, I guess I could say the same about your name as well."

Cynder froze at the mention of that, while Kaz's eyes (for about the fourth or fifth time that night now) became as big as dinner plates.

"You know my name?" Cynder said in shock.

' '

"How?"

'I guess there's no backing out now.' Kaz thought, placing his head into his hands and mumbling something incoherent.

Lifting his head back up to face her, he said "Cynder, right?"

"..."

"...Explanation. Now" Cynder said threateningly.

Vigorously nodding his head, Kaz responded "Well, you know how I said that dragons are used in stories a lot in our society?"

"Yes, but how does that relate to my name?" Cynder replied.

"Well, you see, um, you kinda are in one of those stories." Kaz said half-heartedly.

More shock for Cynder. This "human" already knew about her? Was this a reason why she had appeared here? Not really sure how to process that information, considering the sheer improbabilities and logical fallacies broke by now, said "Go on…"

Relieved that it appeared that he wasn't going to have his head ripped off from his mistake, he continued. "Well, I think it would be better If i showed you personally" Kaz said, moving over to grab one of his game cases, the same one he had happened to be playing that morning, and showed her the cover.

Cynder stared at the image presented to her. Right on the cover, it depicted her and Spyro attacking some of Malefor's forces in front of a mountain.

"I...I remember this moment" she said in shock. "What else is in this story?" Cynder asked, trying to confirm what she thought.

"Well" Kaz said "It's not a story actually in the traditional sense. You see that black rectangle on that wall, and the objects with buttons on them below?" to which Cynder nodded slowly. "Well, the black rectangle is called a Television, which humans use to watch things. Think of it this way, instead of having to go somewhere to watch a game, the game is projected on the television for you to see without going anywhere." To give an example, Kaz grabbed the tv remote and turned it on. Switching from HDMI 2 to TV on the menu, the screen lit up which was currently tuned into the highlights of last night's basketball game for the Miami Heat vs. The Golden State Warriors.

Cynder curiously studied the event that played on the tv, watching how more humans, most of them differently colored from Kaz, running around a field and throwing a ball around, occasionally shooting it into a net on either side.

"It's called basketball, and is one of the most popular sports in America" Kaz explained.

"Interesting. How does the TV do this? Magic?" Cynder asked.

Letting out a small cough, Kaz replied "Oh, actually here we don't have magic. It's a made up idea as well. We use lots of technology to make up for it though, which is why we can make things like this. No magic, just science and engineering."

"No magic?! But, how? If you didn't have magic, how could earth even exist?! The moon and the sun would have crashed into this planet then?!" Cynder said worriedly.

Kaz realized that the society that Cynder existed in was probably nowhere near as advanced as his' was, and even laughed internally at the absurdity of the statement Cynder had made. It looked like they hadn't discovered astronomy either then.

"I think that's a story for another time." Kaz responded, to which Cynder nodded slowly, still bewildered.

"Anyways, TV's can also display things besides events, you can play games on them as well." Kaz switched back to the HDMI 2 setting and turned on his PS3, Cynder watching, fascinated.

Starting 'The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon" with Cynder observing, he opened up the new game, which opened up to a cutscene of the next portion of the game. Once that cutscene had played, he turned around to look at Cynder, her mouth slightly open.

"I remember that too...Me and Spyro had that exact same conversation! Even in the same place! Buh...wha...how?!" Cynder finished at a yell.

"SHHHHHH!" Kaz loudly whispered, putting his index finger in front of her snout. "I can't let my parents know about you! They are sleeping!" Relaxing, Kaz continued. "Look I know i might be accepting of you suddenly appearing here, no matter how much logic has been broken now, but a lot of people probably couldn't wrap their head around you existing. You could get in some real danger" he warned.

Cynder shook her head in understandment. At least in her view, she could think something similar would happen to Kaz if he appeared in her world.

"Sorry" she whispered, turning her head back to the screen, which has moved to an overhead view of her and Spyro in Avalar.

"I'm still just having a hard time understanding that what's happening is real. To think that my entire is life is known by so many people in this fashion is creepy." Cynder stated, looking up at Kaz.

"Its alright, I understand you" he replied. "To be fair, the games focus on Spyro a lot more, so people don't know EVERYTHING about you, compared to him."

* * *

After watching Kaz play through a small portion of the level, Cynder adding more comments on how she had experienced these exact moments, he saved the game and shut off his tv.

"So…" Kaz said to Cynder, currently stretching her wings out. "We need to figure out a way to hide you from other people, specifically my parents, and anyone else in general."

"I guess so. I'm just worried how i'm going to find a way to get back to my world. From what you've said and what i've seen so far, it doesn't seem like I can rely on any forms of magic from others to help me out" Cynder said, slightly dejected. "If only Spyro was here…I hope he's okay."

Kaz and Cynder sat in silence for a moment, before Kax said "You love him, right?"

"How did you know?" Cynder replied, confused.

"The game, remember?" Kaz reminded her.

"Oh…" More silence. "Yeah, at least I think so. I think being with him as a fighting companion for so long, I don't really know what we are. I don't know how i'd be able to deal with normal life without him at this point…" Cynder finished. Turning to Kaz, she asked "Do you have a mate, or a love interest?"

That caught him off guard, he hadn't expected a question like that. Quickly regaining his composure, he said "No, not currently. I'm only 16 years old, I don't really feel like it's the right time for one right now."

"16?! You should already be an adult now? Why wouldn't you be looking for a mate?"

Kax sighed, realizing that he would half to explain more things about humans. "Humans don't become adults until the age of 21, and even then, some don't find a life partner until their 30's."

"So your an adolescent then?"

"Yeah."

"..."

"How long do humans live for?"

Another sigh. "Most humans have a lifespan of about 80 years old these days, but if your lucky and in good health, you can live into your 90's and even your 100's. The record for the oldest person was 122 years old."

"ONLY 80!?" Cynder yelled, quickly being hushed by Kaz once again.

"Yeah, why is that a surprise?" he questioned.

"Well, for dragons, we can live up to 10 centuries on average. The cheetah can live for nearly 200. And from what I know, the moles have the smallest lifespan, and that's still reaching 150 years on average."

"Oh, honestly i'm not surprised. I always expected mythical creatures to live for a long time." Kaz said, although slightly dejected.

"I'm sorry?"

"No no, it's fine. It doesn't bother me at all." Kaz said quickly. "Anyways, we still need to figure out a way for you to hide, it's getting late now."

"Oh I know, I do have shadow camouflage, I could easily hide in your room if someone was to walk in" Cynder stated.

"Alright, well that solves that problem then. We should probably get some sleep right now though, and then I promise i'll try helping you out starting tomorrow."

"You'd do that for me?" Cynder asked.

"Well yeah, of course. Who'd id be to let you figure this out when you know almost nothing here. It'd certainly add some spice in my life as well' Kaz said while a small smile.

"I, um, thank you, uh...Kaz" Cynder said with a smile of her own. "I'm not really tired though right now, since I kind of just woke up an hour or two ago from my state."

"Hey, no problem, just please don't leave my room while I sleep. Feel free to check out anything in here, ok?" said Kaz as he slid into his bed, before turning off the lights. Through the darkness, he could still see Cynder's turquoise eyes looking back at him.

"Thank you a lot" Cynder said after a pause "for helping me adjust. It's been a lot to take in all of this so quickly after whats just happened."

"Again, no problem" said Kaz sleepily.

"Uh, goodnight Kaz."

"You too Cynder"

 **Wow. 3K words down in 6 hours. I don't think ive EVER written so much at once. This is getting to be really fun for me to write. I hope i'm not rushing the Cynder and Kaz friendship too much, as I feel that would be unrealistic (If that's possible in this story). Again, please leave any comments and concerns. Thanks!"**


	4. Dude, Wheres My Bacon?

As Cynder watched Kaz fall asleep, she slowly put her head back down. The past two hours had been a whirlwind of new information. She had been glad to have someone willing to help her back home, but still felt a sense of emptiness.

She wanted Spyro back.

Oh how Cynder missed his sweet voice. How he could be so happy go-lucky and then immediately become serious. His rare, purple scales and golden underbelly, and horns that glimmered in the sunlight. He could think his way out of any situation, and Cynder often saw him as hope for the future in times of trouble. He had been the first being to put all his trust into her, which she thanked him immensely for. They had been through so much so far, through nearly four years of adventure (If you included being in a crystal for three of those) against Malefor's evil forces, which had even included herself at one point.

Now though, he was gone. Cynder didn't even know what to think. For all she knew, he could've been in another world himself. Or dead. Or still on their home planet.

" _Or dead"_

" _Or dead"_

" _Or dead"_

No! He couldn't be dead! She refused to believe that! Spyro was too strong for that! Her Spyro couldn't fall to himself after going through so much. He just couldn't.

'But then, why did he not end up here with me?' she thought. They were both at the same place before everything became white. Why had he not gone to the same place as her?

'Because he's dead'

"No, he can't be" Cynder whispered to herself.

Those final words that she had said to him. The most powerful words in the world. I love you.

She did love Spyro. She knew it. She had even said it to him, but had he heard by then? She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. To finally forget the war. To settle down and enjoy what life had to offer with him. But no, here she was, by herself, with only a person she had met a few hours before in an entirely different reality.

"I love you Spyro" Cynder whispered, beads of salty tears forming in the edges of her eyes.

Suddenly, a look of resolve flashed onto Cynder's face. What was she doing?! A strong dragoness, crying in a stranger's room. She didn't cry! At least, she didn't think so. Until now.

"I will find you Spyro. I promise."

* * *

After Cynder's little session of moping, she rose to her feet, careful not to wake up the boy who called himself Kaz. Not needing the light that much thanks to her excellent night-vision, she decided to examine the room a little closer.

From the center of her room, like mentioned before, was a black bookcase, a what appeared to be wooden working desk that was cluttered with papers which looked similar to something Volteer would bury his nose in, and shelf of what appeared to house some sort of miniature figurines.

Kaz's bed seemed similar to the ones that most moles and Cheetahs slept on, with a blue cover that Kaz had nestled under. Next to the bed, was another drawer that had a lamp on it. Above the bed though, was a picture of what appeared to be some sort of sleek metal object with wheels and windows.

Deciding to take an interest at the colorful arrange of books that housed themselves in the ebony structure, Cynder stood up on her hind legs and placed her front paws on the second row of the shelf, examining the titles that were, surprisingly, in the same written language as well.

Most titles of the books did not make any sense to Cynder. What the hell was "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"? Or "Calvin and Hobbes"? Eventually though, one text caught her eye, labeled "The San Francisco Bay Area; A Picture Guide". Remembering that Kaz had mentioned that name when he she had asked where she was, Cynder grabbed the book and gently set on the ground. Lying down herself, the moonlight from one of the windows provided enough illumination for her to read. Opening up the book to the first page, she was greeted with a multitude of maps that showed San Francisco's location in the world, alongside its population and elevation.

She noticed that Belmont, another place that Kaz had mentioned, was located a little ways South of San Francisco. Interesting, it appeared as if this society had smaller cities surrounding one larger city. Cynder assumed that Blemont was her current location, which was nestled between a mountain range on one side, and a bay on the other, yet didn't seem more than 25 miles away.

Looking back at the maps of the area, she shifted to the population measurements, which was to be a shock for Cynder. 800,000 people were indicated to be living in the tiny sections of the city, which was listed as only 45 square miles (Curiously, this world had the same measurements as hers).

"How is that possible though? Warfang is nearly three times the size of that, and yet the population barely reaches 25,000." Cynder muttered. Her question though, was quickly answered, as the next few paged showed the skylines of San Francisco and it's buildings.

Where as most buildings in Warfang where rarely higher than a story or two, these buildings were huge! Some of them were more than 40 stories up in the air, with no signs of instability, and look at all the windows that they had!

"These humans, how do they do it?" She asked to herself. They had no magic, no wings or claws, and didn't appear to be all that strong, and yet where attempting feats of technology with ease. Kaz wasn't lying when he said that they relied on math and science for everything, it must've taken ages to calculate all of this. Volteer could've had a field day studying everything. Scratch that, probably a couple weeks of field days and wouldn't get bored.

Admiring some of the eye candy presented to her as she glossed over photos of Nob Hill, Union Square, Coit Tower, and The Presidio, Cynder realized that these photos seemed almost hyper-realistic for drawings. It was like someone had taken a picture from the vision pool, added clarity to it, and put it in a book somehow.

Diving deep into the book throughout the night, Cynder was also able to concluded that the metal objects with wheels were some sort of transportation device for humans. Passing through more pictures, she reached a picture at the end of the book, which portrayed San Francisco from a mountain apparently called "Twin Peaks". From there, it gave a panoramic view of the entire city and what surrounded it.

The city was truly beautiful, even more so than Warfang, even before the war Cynder had to admit. There where to massive bridges that connected the tip of the peninsula to the other sides of the bay. The grey one, while much larger and connected to an island, could not compare to the red one that seemed to span across the entrance to the ocean. Their was also another smaller island in the middle of the bay, with a large hub of buildings on it.

Overall, the city just seemed sharp. It was like every available plot of land been taken up. If these humans were good at making things, they were even better at utilizing it.

'What a peculiar society' Cynder thought. 'Our world could certainly learn alot from these people'

* * *

As light slowly trickled through the windows of the multitude of houses on Pullman Avenue, Kaz started to wake up. Groaning lightly as he stretched out his arms and legs under covers. Rolling his body over to the left side of his bed, he swung his hand out a few times before finally managing to grab his phone. Unplugging it from the charging cord, he pressed the home button on it, squinting as the brightness invaded his tired eyes. "7:12 AM" it read. Letting out a yawn, and then counting down from five, Kaz managed to swing his legs over onto the side of the bed, eyes still half open.

"Oh, hello Kaz" a voice said.

"Hi mom" Kaz replied, assuming that the feminine voice was hers.

'Wait a minute, my mom never wakes up this early' thought Kaz.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Opening his eyes all the way, he realized that the voice had actually come the purplish/black blob currently on his carpet. Suddenly, the memories from yesterday came rushing back to him. How she had appeared from a crystal and the whole shebang.

"Oh, uh sorry, forgot you were here for a moment, thought you were my mom" he stated, placing his head into his hands.

Lifting his head back up, he could see that Cynder was surrounded by at least four or five book. The one in front of her was titled "The bomb", a world war II book Kaz had gotten recently.

"I see you did some reading while I was asleep" he said.

"Yeah…" Cynder replied hesitantly.

"Is something wrong?" he asked

Cynder let out sigh. "It's just the book I read" motioning towards the one in front of her. "It just brought back some memories of the war I was fighting in. It seems like you guys had it a lot worse from what I saw."

"Oh, yeah. The human race seems to have an obsession with fighting. With so many people on earth, there's bound to be some clashes, but yeah some are over the top."

"But, killing 80,000 people at once?! They were just normal citizens! How did the people fighting live with themselves!" Cynder half-yelled.

"SHHHHH!" Kaz said again, trying to get her to be quiet before she woke up his parents. Answering, he said "Yeah, I honestly don't know either. Believe me, I'm not that proud of my own people. Theres been alot of bad things we've done."

Calming herself, Cynder said "But, thats so many people. They'd be wiping out Warfang three times over!"

"Cynder, I know your mad at what these people did, but this happened almost 75 years ago, there's nothing we can do to change the past" he replied.

"I suppose, I guess i'm just sensitive on issues like this after everything i've been through…"

"I would think so."

Clearing his throat, Kaz asked "So, what else did you read?"

Eyes lighting up, if barely, Cynder grabbed a book to her right. ¨This was the first one I read last night." Handing the book to Kaz, he flipped through the pages.

"A picture guide of San Francisco, cool."

"Is it true you live near this city?" Cynder asked.

"Yeah, all my life. What do you think of it?" he answered.

"It's amazing How is it so small and yet so big at the same? Everything is so much more simple back in our society" Cynder said, slightly eagerly.

"It's probably a benefit of having a bunch of super smart people here. The Bay is full of the world's top technology companies."

"Its like you guys can do pretty much everything here…"

"Yeah, it really does feel like it sometimes" Kaz replied. It felt good to hear someone complimenting his city so much.

"Also, a question. How do you get such good artists to make these pictures" They don't look anything different than real life, do they?" Cynder asked.

Of course, Cynder didn't know what cameras were either, Kaz thought. "Well, that's actually not a drawing. We take pictures of things using something called a camera. Here, I'll show it to you." Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he swiped up for the camera app. "You see here, you press this button, and the moment is saved."

"Wow…"

"Here, i'll even take a picture of you with it." Turning his phone towards her, he pressed the button and a click was heard. Pressing on the album icon, he opened up to the picture and showed it to Cynder.

Admiring herself in the photo, Cynder said "You could remember so much stuff with this!"

"Yep, that's the primary purpose, you can also take things called vidoes on it as well." Proving this as well, he switched to the video option and pressed record.

"Alright Cynder, say hi to everyone!"

"But, what? I thought we were agreeing to keep me out of other people's view for now?"

"Nah it's just for this. I ain't actually gonna show anyone."

"Oh, uh, alright. Hi everyone" said Cynder meekly.

Letting out a small laugh, Kaz pressed the stop button on his phone and then turned the phone around before pressing play, showing the events of the last 15 seconds to Cynder.

"So exactly like the vision pool then?" asked Cynder

"Yes, except you don't need anyone to view the video again, and it's not taxing on the user"

Deciding to simply process another new revelation, Cynder lay there in contempt as Kaz watched.

Kaz broke the silence. "So any ideas on how your getting back home?"

Immediately, a frown was seen on Cynder's features. "No, I don't have any leads besides a crystal that apparently was actually me."

"Well, I have some homework I need to get done for school, but then I guess we can start figuring stuff out."

With a confused look, Cynder asked "What's school?"

'Oh'

Kaz realized that either schools didn't exist in the Spyro universe, or she just hadn't ever learned about it due to her being race as an evil force.

"Well, a school is a place where children, adolescents, and young adults go to learn stuff. Eventually, you get to choose your own classes to set you up for a job. It's also required by law."

"What is it like?" Cynder asked.

"it's actually really difficult and really boring. You have to go through it from ages 5 to 18, with mot continuing to age 21."

"That long? You could be doing so many things in that time period though"

"I don't make the rules, but I think most people at school would agree with you there" Kaz responded with a shrug.

Suddenly, a growl was heard, mainly from Cynder's stomach. Lighting up in embarrassment, Cynder stood up and stretched her wings and joints out, asking "Um, what's there to eat here?"

With a small laugh, Kaz responded "I'd imagine inter-dimensional travel would be taxing, huh?"

"I'd assume so" said Cynder, slightly laughing herself.

"Well, I don't exactly know what dragons eat for breakfast. I have some food at home, mind telling me what you have?" Kaz asked.

"Oh, i'll eat almost any type of meat raw, but I'm fine with a few berries as well."

"Alright" he stated. "You ever had bacon?"

* * *

'Note to self, dragons have a big appetite' thought Kaz as he literally sweatdropped at Cynder's eating habits.

If Cynder was all grace and efficiency when it came to fight or flight, then she was the complete opposite when it came to eating. After explaining to her what exactly bacon was, as well as a fridge, he had taken the contents of the bag of bacon his parents had gotten yesterday and cooked the entire thing, thinking that he would leave some for his parents. Not the case.

As soon as he had taken the strips of bacon back to his room, Cynder, upon complimenting the smell, had wolfed it down like it was her last meal. Once finishing the plate, she had happily asked for more.

"This is the best thing i've ever tasted!" She had said happily.

"Who knew a dragon could be brought down by food" said Kaz in response, munching on his own plate, before heading off to get more.

And thus, Cynder ate all the bacon.

* * *

It was now around 9AM, Cynder had apologized profusely realizing what she had done, to which Kaz said was no worry. However, he knew that his parents would be coming down any moment and had warned Cynder on the plan for action.

"So, since you have shadow camouflage, just hide in my closet if my parents are ever near my room, alright?" Kaz had stated.

"I understand."

Right on time to, as Kaz could suddenly hear his parents coming down the stairs of there house.

"Go!" He hisse quietly, Cynder quickly nodding in understanding before walking into the closet, disappearing before Kaz's eyes as she entered the unlit area.

A couple seconds later, Kaz's dad stuck his head in the room. "Morning Kaz, did you make us bacon, it smells good down here."

Kaz's face paled at that. 'Shit' he thought, what was he gonna say?! "Yeah dad some dragon who showed up last night ate it all"?

"Oh um, no sorry dad. I made it earlier this morning but I dropped the plate and it fell onto the floor, so I threw it away."

"Kaz!" his dad said in annoyance."We just got that yesterday! Be more careful!"

"I Know I know! I wasn't paying attention, i'll be more careful next time."

Facepalming, his dad replied "Alright alright" before walking back to the kitchen, clearly still annoyed.

'Jeez that was a close one' Kaz thought.

Kaz suddenly heard a whisper. "Can I come out now?"

"Not yet" he replied. "Wait until they head off somewhere. Try to make yourself comfortable, it might take a while."

* * *

After a an hour or two, Kaz's parents had finally headed out of the house, stating they were going to Lowe's to pick up some stuff for the backyard, and then wash the SUV.

Waiting until he heard the door close, he motioned for Cynder to come out. Making herself reappear, she launched a glare at Kaz, undoubtedly for being kept in their for so long.

"Hey, don't blame me! I'm trying to keep you safe, I didn't have a choice."

"Yeah, I know, I'm just too prideful to be bossed around."

"You didn't have a problem when Spyro told you to do things" Kaz shot back.

Deadpan stare.

"Shuddup"

"Oof"

 **Alright! Another three thousand words pounded out today! It feel so great to finally be picking up momentum on this story. I'm still kind of struggling with keeping Kaz and Cynder's relationship in balance since they only just met. I'm trying to have Cynder still be a little hostile at first just to fit her character, but its just so much easier to write her dialogue and attitude like this. If you have anything you'd like to comment, please do. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Stephen Hawking Believes In Me

Kaz hopped onto his bed after grabbing his laptop from his desk. He had just finished doing all his homework for school the next day. It had taken him a little longer than usual, partly because of an English essay he had to work on, and also explain to Cynder what he was working on or writing about every 5 minutes. It didn't annoy him that much though, because it was a dragon of all things asking him this. He found it kinda cool to introduce her to so many new things at once.

"Alright Cynder, i'm gonna see if I can find anything useful for your cause now. I don't think anything useful is going to turn up though, considering all of this is supposedly fantasy" Kaz said.

Ok, but using what? Shouldn't you be looking through books fore that? Or scrolls for that matter?" asked Cynder.

"Oh, no, that probably won't help. I'm gonna use this, a computer" Kaz replied, showing his sleek laptop to Cynder, before opening up the screen.

"And what does it do?"

"Well, with a computer, it has similar functions as a tv and a phone. However, there is a thing that humans have come up with in the past 30 years called the internet. Here, come and i'll show you how it works" Kaz explained, motioning for Cynder to come over to him your hand, in which he did.

Scooting over to the side of the bed Cynder stood at, he pulled up google. "So what you do, is you use this keyboard to type in anything you want to know about. The data from your question essentially accesses an imaginary "cloud" of some sort, and pulls the information from there and presents you with answers" said Kaz.

"How can it just "get" information?" said Cynder with a puzzled expression?

"Honestly, I don't understand the inner workings of it either" Kaz said. Technology has accelerated so much recently that I think only people who work with that stuff specifically as a job really understand every step.

Cynder paused for thought, to which Kaz could only shrug his soldiers at.

"Alright, so since inter-dimensional isn't supposed to exist, i'll look up some theories that people have for it." Glancing back at Cynder, he also asked "By the way, do you want to sit on the bed with me? I'm sure it would be more comfortable than on the ground you've been on all of last night and this morning."

If dragons could blush, then Cynder would have been doing that right now, if only lightly. "Y-your bed? Isn't that a mate only thing?"

Kaz questioned her reaction, if only lightly. It was most likely a dragon thing for bed being a more sacred place. "Nah, we humans don't symbolize beds or anything. Legit just think of it as a couch for now."

"Alright then" Cynder responded. Hoisting herself up on the bed, as a large dog would, she lay down on the bed alongside Kaz, making sure not to scratch any of the covers he had on it.

"Wow, this is really soft. I haven't felt something like this in ages" Cynder said, noticing how far she sunk into it."

"I guess so. Probably because of the mattress in it though, although I'd assume you don't know what that is either?" Kaz asked, to which Cynder shaked her head to say no.

"Well, it's basically a soft outer shell with springs inside, that way you can lay down comfortably while still having some support."

"Can't you show me a picture of it on your…?"

"It's a computer, and sure." Pulling up an image, Cynder looked at the interior structure of it, she suddenly shook her head.

"Ah, what am I even doing?! This is important, we should be looking for answers, not beds." Cynder suddenly said, apparently annoyed with herself.

"Yeah, sorry. Alright, back on task!" responded Kaz. He typed "Theories on how interdimensional works", he slowly trudged through a few non-serious sources before deciding to just pull up wikipedia, the article titled "Interdimensional Hypothesis". "Alright, I might have something here" Kaz said, before starting to read aloud the article.

"The interdimensional hypothesis is an idea advanced by Ufologists such as Jacques Vallée that says unidentified flying objects and related events involve visitations from other "realities" or "dimensions" that coexist separately alongside our own. It is an alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis. DH also holds that UFOs are a modern manifestation of a phenomenon that has occurred throughout recorded human history, which in prior ages were ascribed to mythological or supernatural creatures."

"Uh...what?" said Cynder, obviously confused by the information presented in the first paragraph.

"From what I see, it's trying to say that these people have come up with the idea on how one dimension can coexist with another dimension, but we'll have to keep reading" responded Kaz. Quickly skimming through the page, he didn't find any other substantial information about theory, and exited the page. Scrolling back down through the google search results, he clicked on a website called , which was titled for the article "Extraterrestrial and Extradimensional Beings-How they travel space and time"

"To think, I though all of this was a load of crap before…" Kaz said, slightly laughing at himself.

At the beginning of the article, there was a picture of a wormhole with the earth on one side and another universe on the other side. Kaz focused intently for a little while on the paragraph that claimed how there were thousands of so called dimensions. Kaz was going to take with a grain of salt though, It was still hard to determine what was fact from fiction by now.

Scrolling down as Cynder, who was reading over his shoulder, looked completely lost, he skimmed through another paragraph claiming that these dimensions were separated by something called "Dark Energy" and "Light Energy" and was what allowed these passageways to exist. Most of the following claims seemed to make little sense for Kaz either.

Finally though, Kaz was able to finish reading to the end of the passage which talked about how it thought travel through these dimensions were possible. Apparently, there were multiple different types of portals, but what really caught Kaz, and Cynder's eye, was that these portals couldn't just form and collapse, and instead persisted. They were called jump gates,

"Wait a minute" said Kaz, "If jump gates can't just collapse, than that means that the gate still exists..."

"And because it still exists, that means…" Cynder continued.

"You can get back to your world through it! The portal must surely still be here!" Kaz said excitedly. Bringing himself back to earth though, he added "Although we don't even know if that theory actually exists. This could be completely made up for clicks…"

"I mean, it's something though" Cynder said, still a look of hope on her face. "I'll do whatever it takes to get back to Spyro!"

As it turned out, the passage about jump gate portals was the end of the article. Deeming that this was as much help they were going to get from the internet, Kaz shut off his computer and placed it down.

 **Yep, i'm alive. Thought i'd publish this even though it was written 6 months ago and not** **completely** **done. Just lost motivation as school got busier. Bear with me until December once i submit all my college applications, and then the story will hopefully be back on track.**


	6. Authentic Fan

The rest of Sunday was a blur for Kaz and Cynder. As late afternoon rolled in, they spent the rest of the day touring the house Kaz and his family resided within. From toasters to showers, and all in between, Cynder's head was about to burst from the explosion of information that had invaded her brain.

Besides another brief scare when Kaz's parents had returned home (thank goodness for Cynder's ability to disappear in the shadows, especially as the sun began to set), everything had gone as smoothly as both could have hoped. One would have thought that Cynder had lived in this strange new world her entire life, such was the level of detail that Kaz had graciously explained to her.

Cynder had also explained a little more about what it was like under the influence of Malefore, with Kaz adding onto how the games he had played seemed to portray the exact same things that she had explained. It had also left them to question how long Cynder had been in either her own world or in the theoretical wormhole, due to the final game being released over 10 years after Spyro and Cynder's victory.

The turmoil on Cynder's face was evident, but she insisted on continuing her explanation of events.

"It's the least I can do, and I have to get it off my chest somehow. I didn't manage to get through everything i've experienced without a strong face." said Cynder after excusing her lapse in emotions.

* * *

As the night settled in, Kaz was able to sneak in some Chicken from dinner for Cynder, who herself had created a makeshift nest out of blankets in Kaz's thankfully large closet.

"You humans sure know how to prepare good food" Cynder stated between bites. Kaz just grunted in agreement, too busy scouring over clickbait articles about time travel and whatnot. Even though it seemed as if he had found all he could, it didn't hurt to spend a bit more time on the subject.

"Oh, Kaz? I'd like to tell you something" Cynder continued, finally grabbing the attention of the teen.

"And what's that?"

"I'd just like to thank you again, for the hospitality you've provided me. I can't think of what could've happened to me if someone less gracious had found me".

"Again, it's no problem, i'd say it's probably one of the coolest things to ever happen to me. You've been a great person...er-dragon to talk to" said Kaz, flashing a cheeky smile at her as he got out of his chair.

Cynder herself got up to brush the remnants of cooked chicken off of her, stretching a bit as well. "Any luck finding something else to help us out?"

"Unfortunately, no. Theoretically, we know how exactly the wormhole brought you here. Then again, that's just supposed to be science-fiction, and we don't know the trigger point for the wormhole as well. I don't really know any following plan of action either, considering the crystal you spawned out of obviously isn't here anymore…".

The look of displeasure on Cynder's face was obvious, but only for a brief moment.

"Well, i'm sure you've done all you could, and i couldn't be more thankful for that" said Cynder with her own half-hearted smile.

"I guess so…" Kaz trailed off.

"..."

"..."

A lone fly buzzed through the room

"Anyways" said Kaz, "How about I show you another sport that people play here" as he picked up the remote for his tv and pressed of the power button, before flipping through the local channels.

"Crawford chases the high fastball and it remains 1-2" was soon heard from the tv.

"And this is called…?"

"Baseball. The most exciting and boring thing you'll ever see" Kaz said, as he grabbed his San Francisco Giants hat from his nightstand.

* * *

"BOOM! LETS FUCKING GO!" Kaz yelled, as Brandon Crawford smashed the ball down centerfield at the end of a slugest, 17-inning game, with Joe Panik subsequently being able to reach home plate and win the game for the Giants over the Cincinnati Cardinals. "HELL YEA!" Kaz shouted again as he fistpumped in the air. Cynder however, already half-asleep from the the mind-numbing "commercials" as Kaz had called him, much less impressed and yet slightly amused by the boy's enthusiasm."

"KAZ! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT LANGUAGE IS THIS HOUSE?!" yelled a VERY pissed father from upstairs, startling Cynder and making Kaz immediately switch to a poker face. "ITS 10:30! GO TO SLEEP! YOU HAVE SCHOOL TOMORROW AND I WILL NOT BE DRIVING YOU IF YOU'RE LATE FOR YOUR TRAIN" yelled his mother as well.

A meek "sorry" escaped Kaz's lips, although a slight smile crossing his facial features shortly after.

In a quieter voice, Cynder broke the silence that followed. "I'll say, "Baseball" doesn't seem to bad of a thing to watch...when there's actually something happening."

"Yeah, it's honestly a lot more interesting to watch in person, and it doesn't help that this game went over by so many extra innings. I'd bring you to one, but obviously that isn't happening considering the way people would react" Kaz replied with a frown. "And speaking of that, I can't keep you inside of here forever."

Cynder had a frown of her own. Kaz had already explained to her that many people would be eager to study and experiment of her, and the international attention she could draw as a supposedly fictional character and mythical being that from their world existing could change the shape of humanities future as a whole, something she definitely didn't want to get swept up in considering she had already been caught in enough world changing events in her own universe.

"With all you've been able to provide, I think that'll be fine for me to wait inside your home before you figure things out" responded Cynder finally. "Do recall, i may be pressed for time right now, but i've already experienced what being bold and brash will get me into."

"Thanks" said Kaz in response. "I suppose i'll dwell on it soon enough. For now though, we need to figure out a game plan for what you're going to do with me being gone at school tomorrow."

"Speaking of that school you attend, could you explain more about your education system? I really do find it fascinating to have enough social stability to keep children in one place for so long" asked Cynder.

"Ah, well basically everything is taught by formal by professionals who earn a license in teaching, from higher up institutes that are for adults. The main subjects taught are literature, mathematics, and sciences, with other, smaller subjects sprinkled between and which are optional for students to take. Each teacher usually specializes in on subject" Kaz stated. "It's not the greatest thing in the world, but without the system humanity has been able to build around education of youth, we wouldn't have been able to achieve all we have done throughout the course of human history."

"Wow, that pretty amazing. Is it free?" replied Cynder.

"In a sense. Here we pay for public services with taxes. They're quite high , but that allows for the funding of so many things the general public can access. However, do actually become qualified for most jobs, you have to attend university, or college, which are usually private institutions and cost lots of money. I'd assume you have taxes in your own world?"

"I believe Spyro did mention something about that…" Cynder responded, a grimace etching onto her features as she said the purple dragon's name. "He always went off about how his elders had lots of 'breaks' from the system due to their status."

"Oh believe me, there are many people here who benefit from the same thing' responded Kaz.

Something something rich people sneezing and/or feeling unsettled.

"And why aren't you at school everyday then?" Cynder pressed on.

"Besides the point that many would be burned out by the workload if they had school everyday, here we follow a five day work week and a two day break at the conclusion of the week, which is built into our calendar system. Most people with government jobs and non-essential service jobs get those two days off."

"Interesting…" replied Cynder. "I've never heard of a system that mandated when people worked."

"I'd assume most people in your society work more independently?" Kaz asked.

"Yes, at least I think so. It certainly seems like we're a lot less advanced in terms of innovation compared to what everyone here has achieved" Cynder responded.

"Well, i'm not that surprised, we've only been able to innovate this fast in the past 300 years of existence" said Kaz with a shrug. "From what you've explained, your own world reminds me a lot of the more Medieval period of humanity."

"Medieval?"

"Just a fancy word for middle ages, or the time period before our so-called 'Age of Discovery'."

"Ah, I see."

Another pause.

"And so how long shall you be gone?" continued Cynder.

"You guys use minutes and hours as time measurement right?" asked Kaz.

"Correct."

"Then i'll be gone from around 8 in the morning to 16 o'clock in the afternoon. My parents usually leave at the same time but aren't home until 18 o'clock. You should have enough freedom to go out into our backyard and stretch if you need, I don't think anyone can see you back there anyways considering most people will be gone at work or school as well."

"For sure. My wings are getting quite sore being all cooped up in here, no fault to your own" said Cynder, unfurling her leathery, bat-like wings a bit, and making sure not to knock anything over.

"Well, i guess i'll let you know before I leave, but for now its getting pretty late" said Kaz, glancing over to his clock.

"I suppose so, i'm quite tired myself with everything that's been revealed and opened up to me in the past twenty-four hours" replied Cynder, a small yawn escaping her muzzle, to the amusement of Kaz.

"I'll go change into my pajamas, make yourself comfortable."

"Pajamas?" said Cynder with curiosity.

"Just night clothing to sleep in. And don't even question it, I don't understand much of society's clothings standards either."

"Whatever you say" replied Cynder in a half-sarcastic response.

"Ya know" said Kaz, ignoring her remark, "I kinda find it weird that i've known you for only a day, it'd seem with all we've learned about each other, we've known eachother forever."

"Agreed" stated Cynder "And while i'm not in the best predicament overall, i'm glad we're getting along."

"For sure, goodnight Cynder, i'll make sure to do my best in helping you out." said Kaz, as he walked out of his room and to the bathroom to change.

"Goodnight to you as well, and again, thank you" Cynder responded, slinking into her blanket nest in Kaz's closet, not before throwing in another pillow onto it before settling down. The click of the bathroom lock was faintly picked up by Cynder's ears.

'To wherever you are Spyro...sweet dreams.'

By the time Kaz had walked back in, Cynder was already sound asleep.

 **Yeeting on a skeet, i'm back boys and girls! I finally found the motivation to write again as my senior year in high schools finished up. I apologize for such a long wait for this chapter, but I hope you all have enjoyed it. Future character plot development is going to speed up a bit from here, because honestly I don't think having 12k words for one day of story is viable for me. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the future of the story. Onto the next chapter!**


	7. I'm Here For You

**Reviewer Responses**

 **Mr Space Man: Hey man, this summer between high school and university is gonna rule. Feels good to enter the summer for the first time in a while with zero responsibilities.**

 **Dothurnaax: I did try to use a grammar checker for this chapter, although i'm not sure how helpful it'll be considering most of them are locked behind paywalls. Thanks for the advice though!**

 **Sol1234: I like the idea, but it's a bit too cliche with all the over stories out there where a human goes to another world. The whole point of this story is to see how a story that went in the opposite direction would be like. Future pairings and smut, etc. are also undecided.**

 **SonicDJM: Eh, I think the secrecy of Cynder is getting a bit tiring to write about. Of course, Cynder isn't going to be revealed to everyone, but in order to progress the story, there will be some new introductions between her and other people. On the topic of seeing how the Spyro universe reacts to her disappearance, I like the suggestion. I'll see if I can do something of that sort in the future, while still keeping the mystery aspect of it.**

 **Guest: Thanks!**

 **L0nEWoLf: Procrastination gets the best of us.**

 **Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

"Bye Mom! Dad! See you guys later!" yelled a teenager as he left his house, a wave from his parents in the corner of his eyesight as he closed the door.

It was beautiful spring morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, a crisp 68 degrees outside, as the sun had just started to peek out of the early cloud cover. People were rushing to and fro, either to drop kids off to school, head off for errands, or most importantly brave the standstill traffic on the 101 or 280 on their way to work. Most would either be heading up to San Francisco itself to the north, or San José to the south, both an equal distance from our current starting place.

Our main character is question placed his trusty skateboard on the pavement, giving a quick inspection of his most used transportation device. Jumping on, he pushed off towards the busy street that would bring him from the hills, down to his area's Caltrain station.

Thankfully, it was a lot easier of a journey for the sleep-deprived teen, due to the route being all downhill. Many sports fans would agree though, "there's nothing better than a home team win" and Kaz would certainly be one of those to agree with that statement. Hell, he had awoken at five in the morning many times before to watch sporting events in Europe, even those were on Sunday mornings.

Letting the breeze rush around him as he weaved through the slower traffic, a single earbud playing "Paradise City" by Guns & Roses, his mind focused on his school day ahead. While no tests, quizzes, or projects were scheduled for today, he knew that it'd be mostly review for the upcoming finals in less than two weeks. Not overly worried about them, due to the grade buffer he had for his classes (mostly high B's and low A's) he knew he couldn't keep himself too off track.

Helping out an interdimensional-traveling, wing-bearing, fire-breathing, supposedly fictional and yet very much real dragon was obviously one of the most shocking and yet amazing things to ever happen to him. However, he had to agree with his parents for once that school was top priority at the moment. Not only would he be starting his college applications the upcoming summer, but also because he really had no idea what he wanted to major in, so he had to be good in all of his classes. It didn't help that his school, while not overly special, housed a lot of bright minds, simply due to the urban concentration of people in the area. This wasn't one of the most competitive job market areas in the world for nothing, even if Kaz didn't know if he wanted to stay in his native California after high school.

Before he knew it, Kaz had reached the station, where his train wasn't due to arrive for another five minutes. Despite a majority of the students at his school taking public transportation, he was of only a few students to get on the northbound train at this station, with the others only there being people he wasn't close with. Most of his friends lived in the city, so due to them taking the southbound train, would not meet him until they got to school.

Placing his other ear bud into his ears, his playlist switching songs to "Black Dagger" by The Pink Spiders, the #159 Caltrain rolled to a stop, packed to the brim with commuters. Stepping on the train and making sure to have a good stance to avoid falling over when the train started rolling again, he drowned out the chatter from other passengers, reflecting on the weekend he had just explained.

He didn't plan on sharing what had happened to him with anyone else, even if he did trust his friends enough. He respected Cynder enough and knew the importance of her secrecy to make sure she was as safe as possible.

'Man, it is kinda crazy just how this whole situation is turning out anyways' Kaz thought. 'Easily powerful enough to kill me, and yet surprisingly trustful of everything i've done. Not the normal Cynder I would've expected'. It was true, he had always thought Cynder was the more hostile of the pair of dragons he had grown up with in the gaming world, not one to trust a stranger's word, and yet she seemed to obediently listen to whatever he said. Another interesting quirk that he had considered was how Cynder seemed lot more at ease with her past. In the Spyro Trilogy, she had always been quick to threaten and shutdown anyone who brought up her past, while internally still being quite traumatized about what she had caused.

'I guess she felt like she had redeemed herself with the defeat of Malefor, even if that had spawned a whole host of new problems' was Kaz's best guess. He could relate himself towards her a bit as well. If he had woken up in a strange new world with no idea to get back home, and someone that friendly had offered to help him, he would've most likely listened to whatever they had said. It helped as well that he was still a minor according to Cynder, so perhaps not much of a threat as a result.

After stopping a few more stations, it was Kaz's turn to get off the train. Stepping into the light again, the sun had now been fully revealed from the clouds.

"And we're off' he said under his breath, as a whole host of students and adults flooded off and to the stairs that would lead them to ground level. Reaching the bottom of the steps, he hopped onto his skateboard and pushed off towards his school, a few others with bikes, scooters, and such doing the same.

* * *

The bang of the front door closing by Kaz's father was the last bit of noise needed to remove Cynder from the comforts of sleep. Slowly opening her eyes in her surprisingly comfortable, makeshift bed/nest in Kaz's closet, it took her a few moments to remember where exactly she was. Walking out of the closet and giving her limbs a stretch, much like a cat would, she happily munched down on the fruit and water that Kaz had left on his desk, a note signifying that it was for her.

'For all this world's strange quirks and major differences from mine, it sure does share a lot in common' Cynder thought. The food, mainly fruits, vegetables, and other non-carnivorous items were the same as what they had. Kaz had also explained what exactly the environment here was like, and throughout the entire world, which again replicated her own in terms of seasons, and were the hottest and coldest places across the globe were. The only major difference about their respective earths was that this one seemed a lot bigger in size. She still couldn't get over how many people managed to call this place home.

Then again, with everyone who lived on this planet, it made sense how much farther they had advanced in terms of technology.

Finishing her breakfast, and making sure that both of Kaz's parents had left the house, Cynder walked through the house towards the door that led to the rather small backyard of theirs. Getting on her hind paws, she pressed down and pulled on the door handle as Kaz had shown her, the door coming open with an audible "pop!"

Strolling down the steps into the crisp cool air, with the sun just having come out from behind the clouds, Cynder laid down in the slightly moist grass. She needed some time outside in the fresh air, and more importantly, just to think.

Her initial shock, hostility, and sadness of not knowing exactly had happened to her and Spyro, was now replaced with a sense of focus. She never had the most amount of time to think about things when constantly flying around, trying to defeat the newest evil villain. Even with the situation she was in, it felt good to slow down a bit, with no sense of impending doom. Of course, fate had one last trick up its sleeve, and now she was stuck without her savior. The loveable purple dragon of hers.

Cynder was brave though. Right? She had faced worse. Yet she saw nothing after those final moments, in which she was engulfed in light. As Kaz had said when speaking about the "game" that had somehow managed to have displayed her journey to defeat Malefor, "I hate cliffhangers".

The only thing that didn't line-up however, besides the whole, how did some people with no knowledge of her and Spyro make a game that replicated their world and journey itself, was the ending of the game. In it, Kaz had later explained to her that it showed her and Spyro flying around above earth,both with looks with content on their face. Obviously, this was the only part that hadn't actually happened.

Again, fate had played a cruel trick on her, but at least it ruled out that she was some mere puppet.

However, it brought a new question to Cynder's mind; even if she still didn't know what had happened to Spyro. She knew for a fact that he hadn't ended up on this planet with her, due to the fact that she couldn't sense him at all. Thanks to their heightened senses from all the training they had gone through, they could just barely pick up each others wavelengths, and yet she felt nothing at that moment, further frustrating herself.

Deciding not to lose herself in her thoughts, Cynder rose up, shaking herself like a dog to get rid of the moisture on her lower body. Stretching once more and ruffling her wings a bit, she headed over to the fountain that adorned the center of the grassy area. Looking into the bottom of it, the water was as clear as could be.

As Kaz had told her, he had discovered the so-called crystal that had somehow either been her in a different form, or contained her soul or essence as he had best described. It didn't seem like the craziest theory, but then as per usual, there was still the question of what had caused her to be transported to this fountain.

Looking at the fountain with intensity, the calm ripples and the sound of pouring water taunted her ears, alongside her own reflection staring back at her.

"And what are you looking at?' she said at herself in a frustrated voice.

No strange occurrences today, her reflection only looked back at her in a pissed off way.

"Screw it, I need to get out of here or i'll go insane."

Sure, it wasn't the best idea, especially with Kaz trusting her to stay with all the hospitality he had provided, but she was a dragon! She couldn't stay grounded forever.

Unfurling her wings, she felt the breeze run through her body, and with a strong flap from the powerful muscles she possessed, Cynder shot off like a rocket.

* * *

Propelling herself higher and higher, it didn't take long before she above the tops of the trees, and soon after, above the highest tops of the Pacific Coast Mountain Range.

"Wow…"

It must've been the coolest sight she had ever seen, a huge bustling society surrounded a picture-perfect bay. To her north, San Francisco could barely seen, covered in its signature fog that she had read about, with a massive bridge protruding from it across the water. From what she remembered, it was simply called "The Bay Bridge". Directly in front of her, the towering mountain, and highest point in the area, Mount Diablo. South of her, she saw more bridges extending across the water, with bustling roads full of what Kaz had called "cars" moving in both directions. The mountain ranges on both sides of the Bay seemed to gradually decrease in height the further she looked southward..

Flying off towards the interior of the bay in a more relaxing fashion, she passed by what appeared to be two strange huge birds, and yet she sure that they were not birds. They didn't flap their supposed wings of theirs, full of windows, a strange, not-wing, extending at the end, and were awfully loud as well. Perhaps another human contraption they used to get around.

'I don't know what i would've done if I was able to fly, so it makes sense that these flightless humans would build something to allow them to do such things' she thought.

* * *

"Hey Jim, call me crazy, but i think I just saw fucking flying dog towards our eight o'clock."

"Sir, what did I tell you about drinking at the airport bars before flights?"

* * *

Continuing her flight towards the northern part of the Bay, Cynder barely had to put any effort. The ocean breezes that had filtered over the mountain ranges providing enough wind, and therefore lift, for her to just glide across the sparkling water. Before she knew it, she had pierced through the fog that covered the city in front of her.

Taking in the sight of massive structures that covered the city skyline, it was nearly an overload of information to take in for the purplish-black dragon. People, and all sorts of different size cars, littered the grid-like formation of streets, and was by far the most amount of beings she had ever seen in one place. Where there weren't buildings in roads, hills within the city jutted out, with even taller trees. One hill in particular, had a massive red and white hollow tower on it, that pierced easily through the last remaining clouds. Parks all over the area, both large and small, were full of people lazing around, obviously taking his the sun's rays that had become clearer as the day reached the afternoon. Of course, the huge rectangular park that seemed to fill up the northeastern part of city, appropriately called "Golden Gate Park" was by far the largest she had ever seen as well. On the very western side of the city, a massive beach covered the entire length of it.

Speaking of Golden Gate, directly in front of her was the icon of the city, The Golden Gate Bridge. Its huge presence, in the iconic red that signified one's entrance to the bay, was imposing to say the least.

This place sure seemed to obsess with bridges.

Flying high above the bridge, Cynder headed further north. Eventually, the traces of society became more and more scarce, as the trees grew taller, before reaching a valley at the very north of the bay.

The elders would've loved this area the most. As far as the eye could see, vineyards of all different sizes covered the valley and slow rolling hills surrounding it. Many shallow rivers also seemed to flow throughout the area, all emptying into the bay itself. To her surprise, there were many farms full of sheep in the hillsides as well. Then again, humans were omnivores, they had to get their meat from somewhere.

Overall, this area seemed a lot more historic, with the clusters of buildings only a few stories high, and from what she could see, mostly made with bricks, wood, and clay, not the imposing steels superstructures that had dotted the interior of the bay.

Observing the shadows that covered the ground, Cynder realized she would have to cut short her tour for now, and with another strong flap of her wings, took off back south for her return tour of the eastern side of the bay, before heading back to Kaz's house that had been called her temporary home.

* * *

'log (5x - 7) = log (3x - 1)'

It was the sixth and final period for Kaz, and also his most dreaded one, Pre-Calculus. He had always been someone who preferred logic-based questions, so actually having to do work and manually solve problems instead of retrieving answers from memory was the worst, no matter how lazy he sounded.

His day overall had gone pretty well if he had to be honest. He and his gang of friends spent most of their lunch discussing the latest sports news and overall what they were planning to do as the school year rapidly came to a close. Of course, Kaz hasn't mentioned the new acquaintance he had made.

They had come to an agreement the previous week to head up to Mount Shasta and the rest of Northern California the upcoming July, "Dudes Trip" as his friend, Reed, had called it. They had already gotten permission to use one of their parent's minivans to head up as well, so now they had to actually get all the materials needed for the two-week trip planned.

'Summer can't come soon enough' Kaz thought.

Finishing up the problem he was working on, Kaz heard the school bell ring, students slowly filing out of the room to take advantage of the rest of their afternoon. Placing his laptop and notebook in his backpack, we slung it over his shoulder and left the room.

"Yo Kaz! We hitting up 7-Eleven and going to the skate park just south, wanna come!" shouted Takuma from across the hall, who was another good friend of his.

"Yeah man! Lemme get my skateboard, I'll meet ya guys at the bike rack!"

If there was one thing that Kaz loved more than sports, it was energy drinks. Call it an unhealthy lifestyle, but the carbonated sweetness he could get for a couple bucks were definitely worth it. He and his friends had a runny argument on whether Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull, or Bang was the superior drink (he personally preferred Red Bull). Additionally, was there anything more teenage than a couple of dudes with energy drinks hitting up a skate park after school? He thought not.

Grabbing his skateboard from front office, and walking over to the skate park, he bumped fists with Reed and Takuma, as well as the other people in their closely-tied friend group, Ross, Alejandro, and Kazuki. Then they got onto their respective skateboards and bikes and went on their way. Both were only a short distance away.

'Cynder will be fine by herself for an extra hour or two' thought Kaz, pushing onto the ground faster and faster to keep up with the bikers in their group.

* * *

The sound of metal grinding on medal echoed throughout the mostly empty skate park, the only sign of life being the laughter and conversations of some teenage boys, watching Ross' failed attempts at trying to learn how to do a darkslide. Empty cans and half-eaten chip bags littered the area in which they sat in. The sun was starting to set behind them as well.

"Ross!" yelled out Takuma, leaned back against one of the multitude of raps that littered the park. "You fuckin suck!" eliciting some laughs from the group of boys. All in good humor.

"Bruh, you eat shit just trying to jump with your bike. You ain't got no room to talk." he shouted back, followed by a cheeky smile at him.

Continuing to shoot the shit around, Takuma turned towards Kaz, who was quietly finishing the last of his drink.

"Hey man, you hitting up Nicole's party on Saturday? There's gonna be good drinks I heard" he asked.

He tossed his can towards the trash bin, the crumpled aluminum bouncing off the rim and back onto the pavement.

"Nah man, my folks would kill me. Ya know how they get with tests and shit" he responded, reminding himself that studying wasn't one of the most important things on mind for the most of the boys in the group overall.

"Really man? Its free alcohol, and tons of girls. I saw ya last time when you were drunk off your ass. Nearly hooked up with that one girl wearing the tank-top" Takuma shot back.

"And yet he still probably couldn't fuck his way out of a plastic bag!" shouted Alejandro from behind them.

"Man fuck you Alejandro!" yelled Kaz, Alejandro only laughing in response.

Turning back towards Takuma, he continued; "Nah man but for real, I got tons of stuff on my plate right now. Y'all have a good time."

Before Takuma could further pester him, Reed stood up, grabbing his chrome purple BMX bike that always made the rest of the group physically cringe at.

"Alright guys, I gotta go home before it gets to late, y'all know how much of a shit show it is trying to bike from SF once it gets dark" he stated, the rest of the group mumbling in response. Before long, they had all finished their snacks, and grabbed their skateboards, bikes, and backpacks.

After a short ride back to the station, Kaz split up with his friends as a southbound train rolled into the station.

"Alright guys, don't go too wild. See y'all tomorrow" Kaz shouted at them before getting onto the train, still full of commuters, his friends all waving back at him as the doors.

'Man, I'm lucky to have friends like them' he thought.

* * *

Cynder slowly glided down towards the neighborhood that she recalled Kaz's house being in, the afternoon sunset behind her serving to illuminate her way. Sure, the dragon had known the Bay Area was big, but not THAT big, and she hadn't even see most of the area. Her afternoon part of her self-guided tour included flying around mount Diablo and the valley behind it, all the way towards the Santa Cruz mountains in the southwest, and back towards the middle part of the peninsula. Thank goodness for the years of combat having prepared her for long flights like this.

Hell, she didn't care what Kaz thought about her leaving, that had been an experience of a lifetime.

Relieved to see that the front of the house lacked any cars in front of it, signifying that Kaz's parents weren't home, she came to a stop in the green grass of the backyard once more. The fountain had stopped the pouring of water.

It was strangely quiet, besides the woosh of a car passing by on the adjacent street.

Too quiet…

Cynder went wide-eyed. She REALLY had to relieve herself at that moment.

'Alright plants, hopefully you have a strong will to live' Cynder thought, scampering over to the garden bed towards the back of the backyard.

* * *

"Yo Cynder! I'm back! Sorry I'm late!" Kaz yelled as he unlocked the front door of the house. Taking off his shoes and throwing his backpack onto his bed and placing his skateboard under his desk, he was surprised that Cynder hadn't responded yet.

"Cynder? Ya home?" Kaz said again, but still no response from the purple and black dragon.

'Eh, she's probably outside in the back or something' he thought. 'I wouldn't want to be cooped up all day in here either', and speak of the devil, as he walked into the kitchen, he hard the back door open to the arrival of the dragon.

"Hey there Cynder!" he said, startling her briefly.

"Oh hey Kaz" Cynder nodded back at him. "Just got back home?"

"Yeah, I was with some friends after school, it was pretty chill. Your day go well?" he responded.

"You could say that..." Cynder said with a smirk.

Thus, Cynder spent the next hour explaining to Kaz about all the places she had visited throughout the day, in which Kaz was more than glad to answer any questions she had about the things she had seen throughout her own tour. Surprisingly, Kaz didn't seem very bothered by the fact she had flown out with the risk of being spotted. "That sounds like a you problem" he had told her in a joking fashion, but overall understood that she had her own life. Sitting on her ass all day wouldn't change anything.

* * *

The rest of the evening and night went smoothly for our main characters. Kaz had been able to get Cynder some ribs to munch on, to her delight. Bacon may have still topped the pile, but Kaz's parents sure knew how to prepare meat.

"My compliments to the chef."

From there, Kaz had let Cynder browse over some more books of his, the dragon eager to continue learning as much as she could about the new world she resided in. Continuing to answer questions of hers, he went on to explain farming techniques, animal life, and famous places and events that stretched the globe.

'It's as if I'm being interrogated by my history teacher' he thought.

It also helped that kaz was working on a history assignment for school himself.

Eventually it was time for bed, with Kaz having to finally shut up Cynder's interrogation on him, reminding her that he had to be awake early again.

As Kaz went through his nightly routine in the bathroom, not before being forced by her to explain how modern plumbing worked, Cynder excused herself to snoop around a bit more of his room. From there, she eventually stumbled across the case that contained the game she was featured in. Reading the details that were listed on the front and back of the case, there didn't seem to be much that would serve her any good into revealing things she didn't know.

"'Fantasy Violence, Ages 10 and up' my ass" Cynder grumbled to herself. If only these people knew the real horrors of everything she had to go through. Continuing to read through the backside, Cynder began to wonder, how old exactly was this game? The cover sure seemed to be quite old and weathered. It had obviously seen better days

Then, It was like a ton of bricks had struck her. How could she have been so naive to have not thought of it before. If the developers had made something that correlated to her and Spyro's journey so well, then this couldn't have been made just before she arrived. How long had it been between when she fell unconscious to when she had woken up here.

"Oh hey Cynder, whatcha looking at?" Kaz asked, strolling into the room with his PJ's on. Cynder ignored his question.

"Kaz" she said, her voice slightly cracking. "When was this game released?" she asked.

"Uh, 2008, I think. Why do you ask?"

"Kaz, what year is it right now?" She asked instead.

"Uh, 2019? What forrrrrohshiiiiiiit."

"So, from what i'm figuring out, I was knocked out for over a decade?" Cynder stated.

Kaz failed to come up with an answer, the gravity of the situation falling on him at that moment.

It felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Over a decade had passed, just like that. Fate had reared its ugly head once again. Cynder must've been presumed dead by everyone she knew. All that time, missing, and yet it had only been a couple of days for her. She couldn't even think, stricken with grief as a few tears rolled from her eyes.

Here she was, the terror of the skies, weak and lost. She was hopeless, as if the last bits of hope had been extinguished. No sense of time, no sense of home, no sense of her loved one. She was truly alone.

Kaz could only watch with grief on his face as well. He couldn't imagine the inner turmoil going on within Cynder's head at that moment.

"Cynder, we can't make too many assumptions" he tried to reason, kneeling down next to her and trying to comfort the dragon, "We can't give up, we still know nothing for certain."

"K-kaz" she turned back around at him, a face threatening to burst unto tears staring back at the boy. "Don't you see? We don't know anything, that's the whole point! I have no idea how I got here, with no idea how to get back home, so FUCK OFF!" she suddenly snarled at him, before slumping the ground.

Kaz knew better than to fight her on the topic, and instead let her cry out her sorrows, but not before stuffing some covers under his door to try to mute the racket she was making. It was actually scary to see someone so confident and brave to be reduced to that. He knew that she needed some time alone.

* * *

Kaz lied in his bed for a while, feeling just as sorrowful as the dragon at his bedside did. Even if he always wanted to look at the bright side of things, he knew that he truly had very little of an idea on how to help the grieving dragon's return home. He was only a single person.

Eventually, the whimpers from the dragon stopped.

Silence.

"Kaz?" Cynder whispered out.

"Cynder, I really am sorry. I'm just trying my best" he said.

"I know, I'm sorry."

More silence.

"I'm just, going through a lot right now. I'm sorry for lashing out at you, you didn't do anything wrong" Cynder said a bit louder, raising her head to look at him.

"It's alright Cynder, I understand. I know i'd have felt the same if I was in your situation, it's only natural."

Both of them pondered for a while, before Kaz spoke again.

"Just remember, I may have just met you, but I'll do whatever I can to get you home. Your not alone here."

"..."

"..."

"Thanks, Kaz" Cynder said with half a smile, "I appreciate it".

"That's what friends are for, right?" he responded.

'Friends' Cynder thought.

He really did have the best intentions.

She thought for a little longer.

"I'm honored to be a friend of yours, Kaz" she said back with smile.

* * *

 _Flashback: 11 years earlier_

 _"A new age is beginning" echoed the voice of a large blue dragon, referred to as "The Chronicler"._

 _"With each new age, a worthy dragon is chosen to chronicle the many triumphs, and failures of that age. This has been my duty for many millennia."_

 _Turning away from the book that floated in front of him, he faced another, red-colored dragon._

 _"And now, Ignitus, I pass this honor to you."_

 _"And...what of Spyro? Is he..."_

 _"Hmm" pondered the older the dragon, "that is the questions, isn't it?"_

 _The Chronicler floated over a new book in front of the pair of elder dragons. "You see, each time a dragon dies, a new page is written in this book."_

 _He paused._

 _"I've done my best, but I can't find to seem any trace of Spyro."_

 _The Chronicler turned back to Ignitus, a slight smile on his face._

 _"Good luck Ignitus, may the odds be ever in your favor", and just like that he, disappeared. The formerly red dragon became blue, with the former Chronicler's apparel being transferred onto his body. The change of guard had been completed._

 _"Well, young dragon...where might you be?"_

 _Ignitus was unbelievably proud of the small purple dragon and what he had been able to achieve. To be able to live up to the expectations put on his small shoulders, he had done everything he had needed to do._

 _"Wherever you are Spyro, may you get a good rest, you deserve it."_

 _It was only then that new Chronicler thought of Cynder, the young female dragon companion of Spyro, and former monster of Malefor. He had to give her credit in terms of redeeming herself. Heavens know what Spyro would've done without the support of her throughout his journeys._

 _Speaking of her, where had she gone? Flipping through the book that now belonged to him, he could not find any trace of her either._

 _Until...he reached a page stuck to another, that he had missed earlier._

 _Unsticking the page, a strange line of text greeted him._

 _"80010017 PS3 Error Code. The PS3 system wasn't able to load the game or game data."_

 _"Huh?"_

* * *

 **Damn, 5k words for a chapter, I'm impressed. I'm starting to struggle a lot with the fight between too much filler content, and rushing the plot/friendship of Kaz and Cynder. Again. let me know anything you think I could improve and add to the story, and thanks for supporting it!**

 **Also, does anyone know a Beta Reader who could possibly look over my work? Thanks!**


End file.
